Act-On Intros Industry-Specific Marketing Automation Software

Customers using marketing automation software customized for industry verticals are more successful than those using more general solutions, according to Act-On.

Vertical CRM is a hot trend, as Enterprise Apps Today recently reported. Given the close relationship between CRM and marketing automation, it's no surprise that providers of marketing automation software are also introducing industry-specific solutions.

Act-On, for example, this week launched software customized for the health care, travel, finance, manufacturing and retail verticals. According to the company, Act-On Industry Solutions is a digital collection of marketing assets, pre-built automated workflows and industry-specific benchmark results.

Atri Chatterjee, CMO of Act-On Software, told Enterprise Apps Today that the company's customers "have seen the increased effectiveness of their marketing efforts when tailored to the needs of the specific industry."

For example, he said, customers in the health care industry have attained a better response rate and improved feedback from follow-up satisfaction surveys performed by doctors and hospitals when such surveys are done as part of a follow-up process rather than as single episodic activities.

Such a process might include sending a survey via email within two days of a customer visiting a health care provider, with an automatic response thanking those who complete the survey, followed by reminder emails to those who do not complete the survey and, finally, a letter to those who do not complete the survey within a few weeks of visiting the provider.

"In order to do such a campaign efficiently, we provide customers with the right survey format, example questions and the program sequence," Chatterjee said.

Another aspect of customized marketing is the accurate measurement of results and the interpretation of results in the context of a customer's industry, he added.

"To help with this, we have benchmark figures by industry on what average performance rates are for open rates, CTR, conversions and other relevant measurements," he said. "After all, it is far more relevant to measure my performance and compare it to benchmarks in my industry versus in the aggregate performance for all marketers."

Act-On developed the industry-specific solutions after noticing that customers who worked with the company's professional services or customer success teams to customize templates, programs and workflows specific to the operational needs of their industry attained greater performance rates than those who did not.

The software includes:

Industry-specific templates for emails, forms and landing pages with multiple campaign examples that can be easily imported/exported across accounts

Pre-built automated workflows to support multi-step nurture and engagement campaigns, all of which follow industry norms and protocols

Access to aggregated performance results for marketing activities in various industries